How Nextones Puts Place Beyond the Backdrop

Many electronic festivals match their line-ups to picturesque settings, but rarely go further to connect the two. Nextones takes a different approach, curating its programme to actively interact with its stunning home in the Ossola Valley.

There's no shortage of electronic festivals to hit up across Europe during summer, but so many reduce their picturesque settings to Insta-ready backgrounds. Nextones stands out for prioritising place as a curatorial starting point. The identity of the festival, which is now in its 13th year, is built around the relationship between sound, architecture and the surrounding environment, exploring the tensions between cutting-edge experimentation and ancient landscapes.

From Kenichi Iwasa's site-responsive, improvised performance in the medieval village of Ghesc to Daniel Blumberg using the marble wall of the main stage as an instrument, performances unfold in dialogue with the striking terrain, allowing artists to reconsider how sound interacts with space.

This year, Nextones opened at the Premia Thermal Baths with Hydromatique, an underwater sound installation by Michela de Mattei in collaboration with Palm Wine. Presented through four submerged speakers, the work asked the audience to engage from an unusual vantage point beneath the water’s surface.

The weekend’s first live performance followed from London-based harpist Miriam Adefris, whose delicate, unfolding compositions gained an unexpected accompaniment as lightning illuminated the towering mountainscape respecting making nature an active participant.


The festival’s main location is Tones Teatro Natura, a disused quarry that has been turned into a theatre by an environmental redevelopment project. Over the course of two nights, its dramatic architecture became an extension of the programme, as it moved between introspective electronic sets and high-octane dance music.

Standout sets at the Teatro came from Abdullah Miniaway & Simo Cell performing their recently released collaboration Dying is the Internet, London-based John T. Gast’s immersive live electronics and a signature blend of propulsive techno, electro and breaks from Helena Hauff.

The daytime programme focuses on the outdoors, with hikes routed along the stunning surrounding areas including the Orridi di Uriezzo gorge, the medieval village of Ghesc and the Byzantine-style oratory of di San Marco. At each respective location, attendees were met with site-specific performances from guitarist Shane Parish reinterpreting the sounds of Autechre, London-based musician Kenichi Iwasa playing a newly developed hybrid instrument and violinist Laura Masotto mixing classical sounds with analog synthesizers, a Tibetan singing bowl and the timbre of rattling stones.

Nextones rejects the need for increasingly bigger stages and lineups to attract larger crowds, deliberately moving at a slower pace in return for a more intimate experience. At the expense of convenience and profit, the programme challenges the conventional format and asks you to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between audience, artist and environment.

Stay posted for updates on upcoming Nextones editions here.